


Prelude in Flat B

by BlueIris4



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 06:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4511493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueIris4/pseuds/BlueIris4
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Who’d leave you a piano, sir?” James asks.  It’s not disrespectful, not exactly, but there’s something a bit wry about the emphasis he puts on ‘you’ that rubs Robbie up all the wrong ways.  "Can you even play?"</p><p>Robbie inherits a piano and James seizes an opportunity.  Misunderstandings abound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prelude in Flat B

_Where’s it going to fit?_ That’s his first thought. He isn’t thinking straight when he gets the message, can’t be, because otherwise thoughts like, _really, me?_ And, _what the devil was he thinking?_ And, _oh, Christ, I didn’t even know he’d gone_ , would have come to the fore.

But instead he looks around his cramped one-bedroom, so tight the two-seater couch actually seems to be growing out of the wall, and thinks, _well, it’s as good an excuse as any_. Lyn has been nagging at him to get a bigger place for months, although he doesn’t know how many Oxford flats can fit a concert grand.

The lawyer’s left her number, so he calls her back and says yes, he understands the terms of the will, and yes, he’ll take possession of the instrument. He’s operating on instinct here, still in a daze, because this doesn’t feel like it’s happening to him. This is the sort of thing that should have happened to Morse in his day, or to James, or even to his Lyn. He’s too old and too set in his ways now to make room for something new.

But apparently this is what old Hughes wanted. Robbie firmly believes you owe more to the living than to the dead, but that’s easy to say in theory, hard to put into practice. He’ll have to keep the bloody thing.

But bloody hell, what had the old bastard been thinking?

* * *

When James has finished laughing – and that seems to take a lifetime, Christ, you’d think the bugger had never heard a joke, the way he’s roaring at the idea of Robbie moving in with a Steinway – he proves to be as know-it-all helpful as he is on a case.    

“I’ve set up an account for you on RightMove, sir. You can put a minimum limit on the square footage of the property, so that should help you find somewhere for the two of you to settle down in cosy domestic bliss.”

He smirks as if he’s made the witticism of the century.

“Yeah, all right,” Robbie grumbles. “Laugh it up. You’ll be helping me shift the boxes.”

More of that thin-lipped smirking. “I’d be delighted, sir,” he murmurs, but there’s a warmth in his eyes that suggests maybe he really doesn’t mind. Well, that’s something at any rate. It’ll be enough bother organising movers to bring a piano from Newcastle to Oxford; he doesn’t need to pay professionals to help move the rest of his scant possessions.

He scans the site James has pulled up, and clicks on a few properties James has already bookmarked. They look decent, he acknowledges. More than decent. He might go and see one or two of them this weekend.

“Who’d leave _you_ a piano, sir?” James asks. It’s not disrespectful, not exactly, but there’s something a bit wry about the emphasis he puts on ‘you’ that rubs Robbie up all the wrong ways.

“My father-in-law,” he says shortly. “We never got on, mind. Haven’t seen the bloke in years.”

James absorbs this in silence. He has the good sense not to offer any unwanted condolences. Instead, he cocks his head and gives Robbie a curious look.

“Some gift,” he says speculatively. “Can you even play, sir?”

He opens his mouth to say, _That’s enough cheek out of you, sergeant_ , and stops himself. Because it’s not a cheeky question – or at least, it’s no different from James’s usual brand of friendly insolence – and it’s not the lad’s fault that Robbie’s turned all upside down and inside out today. James isn’t to know that just thinking about the black and white keys brings back a lot of memories he thought he’d locked away years ago.

“Not anymore,” he says grimly, and James – bless him – gets the message. He pulls up the latest memo from Innocent and the subject is dropped.

* * *

With James scouring the web and Robbie pounding the pavements, he manages to find a new place in record time – a bright two-bedroom in a North Oxford period conversion. It’s got an open-plan kitchen-living-dining that should just about squeeze a couch, a telly and a nine-foot concert grand. It’s more than he ever expected to pay for a flat, but it’s not actually more than he can afford, and if he really does want to keep the bloody thing – well, space is at a premium in Oxford, and his options are limited.

His former brother-in-law is making loud noises about wanting the instrument gone, so it’s lucky the new flat is standing empty and his current landlord is generous with his break clause. Booking piano movers at the last minute costs a small fortune, but he gives them the grudging okay, and then everything happens so fast that he finds himself letting them into the new flat early on a Saturday morning before he’s even brought the first of his boxes over.  

It’s amazing how they do it, really. They have to take the door off its hinges, and the legs off the piano, and then there’s wheels and pulleys and straps to hoist it onto a trolley, and what seems like hours of pushing and pulling before all the pieces are ready to be reassembled on the floorboards. And then there’s the tuning, which feels like it takes about a year and a half. He tries to tell them it’s not necessary, but apparently it’s ‘all part of the service’ and ‘a crime not to keep an instrument like this in top condition’.

Christ, it’s huge. He’s already wondering if the rest of his scant furnishings are going to fit.

It’s near midday when they’re gone, and then Robbie is left standing in his empty new apartment staring at his brand new grand piano. Something tightens in his chest just looking at it. He thought he’d forgotten this old blighter. It looks just as out of place in his flat as it did thirty years ago in the corner of that Tyneside pub. It’s a bit dinged up in places, but there’s a mellow sheen to the lid that sort of glows in the late summer sunshine. For a moment, he’s almost tempted to sit down and see what comes back to him – but what if something does? Or what if it doesn’t? He can’t decide which possibility bothers him more.

It’s a positive relief when James turns up with hot coffees and some loose sheets of paper.

“Something to get started on, sir,” he suggests, and passes over a selection of _études_ and _adagios_ perfectly selected for a not-quite-beginner to sink their teeth into. Robbie glances through them and thinks he could sight-read these in his sleep, and he’s about to hand them back with a polite demurral, when he takes a second look at the worn, faded pages and catches himself. There are pencil markings through the pages, and a childish hand has inked ‘J. Hathaway’ in the corner of one of the leaves. These belonged to James once. Lord knows where the lad dug them out from. It’s – well, it’s pretty damn thoughtful of him.   

“You play then, do you?” he says, while thinking, _of course he does_. Name any activity in the world and no doubt James Hathaway can perform it to concert standard. He could probably play arpeggios for England.

“Not anymore,” James says quietly. Robbie wonders if the echo of his own words is conscious or not. “But I…well, I wasn’t bad, once.” Robbie runs that through his internal Hathaway translator and decides that means the lad was a ruddy virtuoso. “Thought I could help you get back into it, if you like.”

For a moment he doesn’t know what to say. He hasn’t actually thought this through beyond finding a place to put the bloody thing, and he’s never intended to actually play it. But James’s eyes have skittered to the left in that way they do when he’s a bit nervous about something and trying to hide it. Robbie can’t think what the lad could possibly have to be worried about when it comes to something as trivial as piano lessons, but it’s obvious that this means a great deal more to James than he’s prepared to let on. That’s a bit of a mystery, but it’s one he’ll worry about on his own time. For now, he tightens his grip around the sheets of music and says, “Yeah, alright. That’d be grand.”

He doesn’t miss the relieved smile that spreads warm and slow across James’ features.

“I think that pun fell flat, sir.”

Robbie rolls his eyes. Piano lessons are one thing, but he draws the line at dubious musical humour.

* * *

For the first few weeks, he barely notices the piano. There are boxes stacked every which way in front and on top and all around the instrument, and then a case lands on their desk that’s so bloody complex neither Robbie nor James see much of the inside of their eyelids over the next week, let alone the inside of their flats. Between nights on call, and the endless stack of paperwork even after they nick the sick bastard, unpacking his meagre possessions is decidedly low priority. It’s over a month after the move before he breaks down the last of the boxes.  

And then it’s just there. A huge, luminous black monster of a thing, smack bang in the centre of his living room.

It’s the enemy at first. It dominates the space, taking up pretty much every inch that could be devoted to something more reasonable. He has to sidle around the bloody thing to get to and from the loo, or to make himself a cuppa. It’s a decorator’s nightmare.

And the way it looms over everything – well, some mornings he wakes up and he could swear it’s grown bigger.

But gradually he grows accustomed to sharing his space with something bigger and older and grander than he is. It has its half of the flat, and he has his. They learn to cohabit in a state of grudging mutual toleration until somewhere along the way, he even starts to become a bit fond of the beast. It’s an odd domestic fixture, certainly, but it’s distinctive, and it’s his.

It’s about this time that James says to him, “So, how’re you finding your new flatmate?”

It’s a funny way of putting it, but Robbie sort of understands what he means. There’s something proud about the instrument, something confident and dominating. Maybe not all pianos have personalities, but he thinks his might.

“All right. We’re getting used to each other,” he allows dryly. “She keeps herself to herself.”

“Oh yes?” James grins. “The silent type, is she?”

Well, yes. Robbie hasn’t got around to trying the keys yet. He’s thought about it a few times – thinks about it more and more as the days pass, truth be told – but something keeps holding him back.

“S’pose I should give it a go,” he says now, unable to keep the reluctance from his voice.

James quirks an eyebrow, and he’s wearing that look he gets more and more these days – that look Robbie is never able to decipher, even though he thought he’d finished compiling his Dictionary of James Hathaway years ago. It’s the look he usually wears right before he does something more thoughtful than any Inspector has the right to expect of their Sergeant.

“I could come round,” he offers quietly. “If you like. Offer a bit of moral support. Or constructive criticism. I promise not to cover my ears.”

He grins again, but there’s a quiet seriousness to his gaze that tells Robbie the offer is meant sincerely. James can’t know, of course, he can’t have any idea why sharing his life with this instrument is doing such a number on Robbie’s head, but he’s seen enough to know it’s touching on a sore spot and he’s offering what he can. He’s a good lad. A better sergeant and a better mate than Robbie deserves, no doubt.

And Robbie’s not like the piano. He’s not proud. Not too proud to reject a friendly hand in the spirit it’s meant, anyway. “Ta, lad. You could give me a lesson, if you like.”

James bites his lip, then nods in that serious way he has.

“Alright. I suppose you’ll have to call me ‘sir’.”

There's a mischievous twinkle in his eye that suggests he rather likes the idea.

* * *

This might have been a mistake. By seven o’clock, Robbie is pacing back and forth in the limited space the piano allots him. It’s been years since he last touched the ivories – he probably can’t even remember how to play a scale – and surely there’s no faster way to remind himself how old and tired he is these days than trying and failing at something that used to be easy as breathing. If he can’t do it, that’ll be terrible.

But if he can –

God, that might even be worse.

He doesn’t need this – not now – he’s spent the last decade trying to keep the past in the past and he doesn’t need any throwbacks to the Robbie Lewis of thirty years ago. He’s no green lad from Tyneside anymore. Every part of that man (his home, his wife, his sound) is gone.

There’s a knock at the front door, barely audible over the patter of autumn rain. Robbie throws it open and says, “This isn’t a good idea. Sorry I’ve wasted your time.”

James shifts his weight on the stoop, his face cast in heavy shadows.  

“All right,” he says, sounding surprisingly not-surprised by the greeting. “But if it’s all the same to you, can I come in? It’s a bit wet out here.”

Of course. Robbie stammers a welcome, cursing himself for being ten types of fool and making a needless drama out of everything. He steps aside, and James gives his shoulder the briefest of gentle squeezes as he walks past. It’s just a friendly gesture, and a bloody patronizing one Robbie might have thought at any other time, but tonight it does seem to make him breathe easier.

“I’ve brought a fairly decent red,” James calls out from the kitchen. “Shame not to drink it.”

He pulls out two glasses with the comfortable familiarity of one who knows this kitchen as well as his own. Robbie is grateful for it. He’s not quite up to playing host tonight.

They sit down on the couch and discuss the latest rash of break-and-enters, rumours that Gurdip is putting the moves on DC Lockhart, talk around the nick that Peterson is gunning for DCI. They don’t talk about the colossal elephant in the room – in this case, the literal elephantine colossus of an instrument that’s staring them both in the face. But there’s little else to look at in Robbie’s bare apartment – just a silent TV screen and a silent instrument – and Robbie knows that both their minds are on music, not conversation. He wonders what James makes of all this. He probably thinks Robbie’s gone off his rocker. Maybe he has.

“Did your father-in-law play?” James asks when they’re more than halfway through the bottle.

Robbie swallows and stares deep into his glass. The wine glows a warm blood-red in the lamplight.

“Not a note,” he says. “He bought this monster when the old Conservatorium had to downsize. Bit of an impulse buy. Bloody stupid of him, really.”

Hughes had always been like that – impulsive, spendthrift, a bit of a chancer. No wonder they’d never gotten along.

“It’s a beautiful instrument,” James says, deliberately non-committal.

Aye, it is that. But it hadn’t even fit in the front room of the Hughes’ house and the old man had had to keep it in his pub. What a waste – both of space and the piano. Val used to tease her Dad about it something awful. Who needed a nine foot concert grand down their local? He swallows around a thick lump in his throat and fiercely represses memories of Val’s tinkling laugh, her bright smile in that smoky pub, the curve of her body as she swayed along to Gershwin.

“Beautiful sound,” Robbie remembers in spite of himself. “Very mellow. Not like the Steinways you get today – all clear and bright like bells. This old girl’s a different breed.”

James meets his eyes steadily.  

“Would you show me?”

He’s about to demur, but there’s something about James’s expression – so quietly hopeful, so openly fond – that stops him. He looks from the lad to the instrument, drains his glass and stands up.

The piano feels bigger than he remembers it – a firmer barrier between him and the rest of the world than it ever used to be – but then it’s been years since he last sat on this side of the bench. He takes his time lifting the lid, caressing the keys, re-familiarising himself with something he once knew as well as the back of his own hand. He doesn’t try for anything difficult, doesn’t even brave some low octaves although he remembers all too well how the bottom notes ring out on this old girl. He lets his right hand drift over the keys, picking out a scale, an arpeggio, then a simple half-remembered melody.

It feels strange – like coming home, and landing in a foreign country all at once. It’s familiar and not, comfortable and unsettling, old and new all together. He hears Val laughing, and smells smoke and beer, but he’s looking at the bare walls of his Oxford flat and it’s not Val’s hand that’s curled reassuringly around his shoulder.

“There’s a good acoustic in here,” James says quietly. “You’re right – it’s a beautiful sound.”

Warm. Rich. Mellow. She’s aged well – better than anyone could have expected, after everything she’s seen.

“Yes,” Robbie agrees, and has to cough to clear his throat. It feels a bit thick all of a sudden. “Suppose it’s a waste not to play her now and then.”  

After all, it’s absurd to keep a Steinway as an ornamental table.

“I’ll come back, if you like,” James says now, and his voice is careless and friendly. Only the slight tightening of his fingers around Robbie’s collarbone suggests this offer is anything but casual. “We could take a look at some Mozart.”

He doesn’t need Mozart, Robbie thinks. He had his own style once – Blues chords, cascading syncopated melodies and a stride bass line – and while he doesn’t doubt that James was a prodigy on the keys, he doesn’t think his technique is going to benefit much from the composers chosen by James Classical Virtuoso Hathaway.

He just needs time – time to adjust, time to re-familiarise himself, time to sort out what’s the past and what’s now.

But the lad’s hand is falling away from his shoulder, James is stepping back, and Robbie doesn’t want him to go.

“Same time tomorrow?”

He doesn’t have to see the lad to know he’s smiling.

* * *

They get off on the wrong foot, of course. Not him and James – that ship sailed long ago – but him and the piano. Her top A sticks, and he’s not expecting it. He tries to run a scale too fast relying on muscle memory that just isn’t there anymore, and when the key sticks he damn near sprains his finger.

He swears aloud, and James looks up from the music he’s perusing.

“You alright?”  

He shakes his right hand and massages the base of the finger. No damage done – just a nasty reminder that there are some skills you have to relearn from the beginning.

“It’s a waste of time, lad. I’m too old to get back to this now.”

James puts down the music and comes to stand at the piano.

“Budge over,” he commands and, too surprised to argue, Robbie does. James plonks down on the stool beside him, so close they’re touching from their shoulders all the way down to their knees, and says, “Start over. Slower this time.”

Perhaps it’s the sudden shock of all that physical contact that startles Robbie into silent obedience. His fingers feel fat and old and ungainly stretching out over the keys, particularly with James’ long and slender fingers loosely curled on the lip of the lid, but after a few tries the scale does come more easily. He realises he hasn’t forgotten it. He’s lost strength, definitely, but the memory is there.

“Did you learn to read music?” James asks now.

Robbie opens his mouth to snap back an indignant response, then pauses. It’s a reasonable question, he reminds himself. Lots of pianists play by ear. That had been Robbie’s own strength, really – more years ago than he cares to remember. He’d been decent enough at sight-reading, and he’d put in the hours slogging through sonatas and minuets, but he’d always felt most at home imitating the greats on the wireless.

“Forty years ago or more,” he says grudgingly. “Reckon I haven’t forgotten.”

So James pulls out a simple written-for-beginners étude, and begins talking him through it. And Christ, it’s been more than a decade since he last touched the ivories, but he doesn’t need anyone teaching him to suck eggs. He opens his mouth to tell the lad just that, and stops.

James’ face is alight with enthusiasm and he’s gesturing wildly at sections on the page, talking with an animation he doesn’t show anywhere else. Certainly not at the nick, where it has to be obvious to anyone with half an eye that any enthusiasm he might have had for the job has been ground out of him by long hours and miserable cases. Something in Robbie melts at the sight of his sober, serious sergeant bubbling with eager joy.

So he doesn’t say anything. He sets out on the étude at a sober pace, and finds it _is_ a bit harder than he’d expected – not the reading of it, but the actual playing. His fingers feel weak and clumsy, and they won’t do quite as he commands. But he’s made a good show of it, all the same, and he pauses when he’s finished to enjoy the familiar weight of his fingers on the keys. He's rusty, but he’s missed this. More than he’d known.

He’s curiously gratified to hear James cough and say, “Right. Well done. Okay, that was – I’ll get something a bit harder for next time.”

 _Next time._ Robbie’s looking forward to it.

* * *

Next week James arrives triumphantly waving a Grade One book that looks at least thirty years old. He’s picked out a simple Haydn minuet for Robbie to take a stab at. Again, it’s insultingly easy; again, Robbie can’t bring himself to say a word. James has taken the time to select this for him, he’s been thinking about Robbie and his piano, and somehow that warms Robbie through. He takes the music docilely and works his way from start to finish, and James seems positively delighted by the ease with which Robbie takes to it.

“You’ve got a real feel for Haydn,” he enthuses, while Robbie scowls inside and thinks that Haydn is almost as desperately dull as Mozart.

“But you’re playing with flat fingers,” James says now, and flops down on the bench beside him like a sack of heavy, warm enthusiasm.

He reaches out and places his right hand on top of Robbie’s on the keys. His fingers curl between Robbie’s own, gripping his palm and slowly lifting it up into the rounded shape preferred by piano teachers worldwide and used by actual pianists nowhere.

And something inside Robbie squeezes tight and then deflates as fast as a balloon.

He stares at James’ hand curled around his on the keys. They’re holding hands, he thinks dumbly. James is holding his hand. He’s just correcting Robbie’s technique, this is standard didactic practice, and there’s no reason at all for Robbie’s heart to have started beating a rapid march that’s more military tattoo than minuet. Maybe it’s a _scherzo_.

“Try again,” James suggests, peeling his hand away.

Robbie’s too shaken to do anything other than follow orders. But as he stumbles his way through a second rendition, he’s acutely aware of James’ fingers curling on the piano, tapping precise time and seeming to touch something deep inside Robbie every time they touch the lid.

* * *

It’s hard to believe these lessons aren’t dreadfully dull for the lad. No doubt James can sight-read Liszt sonatas, or pick up a bit of Rachmaninoff and play it perfectly straight off the bat. But incredible as it seems, it’s evident that James is taking real delight in working through these simple little melodies with Robbie. And it’s infectious, somehow. Robbie’s never been one for classical music, though after all those years with Morse he’s learned to like opera well enough, but now he finds he rather enjoys picking up a march or a minuet and plodding through as best he can. James has a real feeling for them, and he’s always got half a dozen bright ideas about ways to lift these simple tunes into something that’s touching or uplifting or just downright beautiful.

He’s a good teacher, with an intuitive understanding of music. Robbie doesn’t know why this surprises him. He’s never found a thing at which James doesn’t excel. He wouldn’t blink an eye if the lad told him he had a degree in taxidermy, or had taken up competitive omelette-making, so there’s no reason for the knowledge that James plays the piano to leave him feeling so unsettled.

Maybe it’s because it’s something they share, and Robbie knows there’s precious few of those around. James Hathaway was reciting Latin declensions and Greek poetry at the age Robbie Lewis was stalking around the streets of Newcastle as a junior in Vice. There’s precious little common ground between them beyond the job, even if that seems to be enough most days.

Perhaps there’s something to be said for that nonsense about music being a common language. Sometimes it’s starting to feel like they’re having a whole different conversation from anything they've had before.

* * *

It takes a few weeks before Robbie notices something odd. James won’t touch the keys himself. He’ll gesture, he’ll explain, he’ll point to sections in the music, he’ll sit so close to Robbie on the bench that they’re practically welded together, he’ll even pull up recordings on his phone, but he won’t ever demonstrate himself. Robbie tests this by deliberately making a hash of the Waltz in front of him, just so he can say, “Look lad, why don’t you show me how it’s done?”

He couldn’t be more astonished when James stands up abruptly and backs away, saying, “No, no, I couldn’t do that.”

He calls the lesson to a halt five minutes later and doesn’t even stay for a drink afterwards.

It’s ruddy odd, Robbie thinks. But perhaps James doesn’t want to show off. He’s always been like that – quick to conceal his abilities, as if he’s not sure they’ll be appreciated. Not for the first time Robbie wishes he could go back and give James’ former governors a clout around the ear. He can imagine the kinds of things that were said to a bright graduate entrant when he started – nothing actually cruel, but enough ribbing to cripple a lad like James with enduring self-doubt. He’s been working for years now to build up the lad’s confidence at work. Never dreamed he’d have to do it at home too, and over something as trivial as a piano.

So he bides his time, waiting until an evening when James is lounging on his couch with a cold beer and a packet of crisps, looking unusually cheerful and relaxed, and Robbie judges it’s the right time to ask, “Why don’t you play anymore?”

James looks startled by the question. Well, fair enough, Robbie supposes. They’ve been talking through a series of robberies down in Iffley Village, and James has been bemoaning the latest round of budget cuts, and just because these days music is never far from Robbie’s mind, doesn’t mean James’ thoughts are marching in time.

“If it’s me listening that’s got you bothered, you can come by whenever you like and have a go on the old girl. You’ve got a key, let yourself in when I’m out. I know you don’t have as much as a dinky keyboard in your flat.”

James twists his fingers in his trousers and looks away.

“Thanks, sir,” he mumbles. Instantly Robbie’s on the alert. James never calls him ‘sir’ at home, not anymore. “But no, I don’t think I will.”

“Wouldn’t be any bother,” Robbie says now, watching his sergeant closely. There’s something taut and unhappy in James’ face that worries him. “Shame to lose your skills for want of practice.”

The corner of James’ mouth lifts in a lopsided smile that Robbie doesn’t think holds any real amusement. The lad looks anxious, Robbie thinks. And unhappy. He’s definitely unhappy.

“Why’d you stop playing for so long, sir? If you don’t mind my asking?”

Turning the question back on him. It’s a typical Hathaway evasion technique. Robbie’d call him on it, if he didn’t know that calling James onto the carpet was his own particular way of avoiding questions he didn’t want to answer.

So he gives the question the consideration it deserves.

“We had to sell our upright when we moved,” he says finally. “We just didn’t have the space for it in the new place, not with the kids’ stuff everywhere. And then – well, guess I thought it might stir up the past.”

James gives him a meaningful look. It hits Robbie then, sharp and cold and lethal as the stab of an ice-pick. The summer house. Piano lessons. Augustus Fucking Mortmaigne.

He feels like the worst sort of thoughtless, selfish bastard.

“You learned at Crevecoeur, I suppose,” he says, trying to keep the anger and the horror out of his voice and knowing he doesn’t quite manage it.

“Yes,” James agrees evenly, then takes a second look at Robbie’s face, and sees all the wrong conclusions Robbie’s drawn. “Oh, no,” he says quickly. “No, not with Mortmaigne. It wasn’t – not what you’re thinking. My Mum taught me. She was pretty good.”

James’ mother. Another conversational landmine, and one Robbie knows from long experience not to go anywhere near.

“Oh, right.”

He doesn’t try to hide the relief from his voice and James must be able to hear it, because he quirks a lip, giving Robbie a kind of tentative half-smile.

“I play the guitar now,” he reminds him.

Oh yes, Robbie had forgotten that. The lad’s in a band, isn’t he? Like Robbie had been once, he thinks, with a rush of warmth. Although, perhaps not quite. He remembers James saying something about medieval instruments and ‘Gregorian Funk’ and decides not to ask.  

* * *

That night after James has left, Robbie sits himself back down at the keys. He hasn’t been brave enough to tackle the piano on his own – not yet – not without James there. But he’s being irrational, he thinks now. What is he worried is going to happen? It’s just music.

He settles his fingers on the keys and ignores the little bit of simplified Beethoven James has left on the stand. He runs his fingers over the keys aimlessly, listening to the rise and fall of the notes echoing through the flat, and somewhere along the way a melody starts to develop. A melody he thought he’d forgotten years ago. Without thinking his left hand falls into a G – a G7 – a G diminished – and a song emerges, easy as breathing. He can almost hear Nat King Cole crooning the words as his hands slip into those familiar patterns. There’s a few mistakes, of course – he hits an F minor instead of an F6, and the arthritis in his right hand makes his fourth finger quite uncooperative, but the music and the memories are so close it’s like it was only yesterday he was showing off in front of a plump brunette in a smoky pub in Tyneside.

_Unforgettable, that’s what you are,_

_Unforgettable, though near or far._

She had been, too.

 _And forever more, that’s how you’ll stay_...

Somewhere between the A9 and the C minor something goes wrong. He’s reached for the wrong chord, it jars, and now he’s modulated keys quite unintentionally. It doesn’t sound like the same song at all. He could keep playing – he’s always been a dab hand at improvisation – but instead he lets his hands fall away and rests them on the lid. He lowers his forehead to rest on the back of his arm, and it’s only then that he realises his eyes are wet.

* * *

“You’re really improving,” James remarks casually at the end of their next lesson.

Robbie feels the first bite of a guilty conscience. He’s been playing all week – not the beginners’ exercises James left for him, but the jazz standards he’d loved so much in his youth. At first he’d had to look up chord progressions on the computer, but after a few days he hadn’t needed to bother. It had all come back so easily.

He tinkles absent-mindedly across the keys and wonders if he should say something and if so, what. There’s really no way he can explain this net of misunderstandings they’ve fallen into, not without crushing the lad.

“Yeah, well, I reckon all this ruddy Mozart is helping a bit,” he says finally. That, at least, is definitely not a lie.

Robbie has never been one for classical music, but he has to admit, it’s done wonders for his technique. His fingers are definitely stronger and more flexible than they used to be, and he even feels like some of that muscle memory is starting to return. He’s not getting much out of the crummy bits of introductory Haydn that he can sight-read backwards (although he makes a show of stumbling, now and then, just so James can swoop in and show him where he’s gone wrong, and he can see the lad’s eyes light up in that way they do). But James is also making him run scales and exercises and arpeggios, all the bits Robbie never had much patience for before, and it’s making a difference. He can pull off fills he’s not sure he had the technique for when he was twenty-two.

He’d like to play like that for James, he realises suddenly. He’s been listening to a lot of Thelonious Monk this week, and he thinks he’s just about got the hang of bepop again. It may not be James’ style, but with a bit of time, he thinks the lad might come to like it almost as much as his beloved Baroque.  

But he realises now the very impossibility of ever playing his tribute to Monk for James. The lad thinks he’s struggling with Bach’s _Minuet in G_ , for Christ’s sake. If he tells him the truth – well, the lessons’ll be over, for a start. They won’t be listening to any music together at all after that.

So instead of bringing up Monk, or Fats Waller, or any of the greats Robbie has loved for longer than James has been alive, he says, “Think I’m ready for Chopin?”

James grins at him. “I’ll see what I can find.”

* * *

It’s a funny thing, Robbie thinks. He sees James every day, and has for years. There shouldn’t be anything different about these ruddy piano lessons – Lord knows he’s used to James playing the pedant and telling him what to do most days of the week anyway. But it does feel different somehow when it’s at home, over a glass of wine, with music playing in the background, or Robbie himself striking the keys. Somewhere along the way, this bi-weekly ritual of chatting over the piano has become the highlight of Robbie’s week.

Perhaps it’s just seeing the lad looking so at ease. In at the office, with his tie knotted up to his Adam’s apple and his black shoes shining with military severity, James is a subdued version of himself – all sober and serious, and only the occasional cheeky aside to hint at the cynicism of his ongoing inner monologue. But here, padding across Robbie’s floorboards in his lavender socks, with his collar undone and his sleeves rolled up, the lad looks vibrant and alive in a way he never does at the nick. He never pulls his insults – “I don’t think Purcell was writing a death march, Robbie,” – and he’s just as generous with his praise – “Fan-bloody-tastic!” he crows when Robbie masters the tricky turn in a difficult sonata. His enjoyment is undeniable.

James tends to run his hands through his hair when he’s enthusiastic, and by the end of a lesson, his hair sticks up at all angles from his head. It makes Robbie want to reach out and smooth it down. Sometimes the effort it takes to keep himself from reaching out and running his hands through that static blond mop is enough to make Robbie’s fingers tremble.

They’re doing it now, actually. James is once again extolling the supreme mastery of the Baroque composers – “It’s _passion_ in _order_ , don’t you see, Robbie?” – and Robbie is barely taking in one word in ten. The lad is standing there barefoot on Robbie’s floorboards, his cheeks flushed and his hands waving wildly in the air. It’s hard to believe he’s the same self-contained sergeant Robbie sees day in, day out. Certainly Robbie’s never looked at his sergeant and thought about reaching out and stroking his hair, or taking hold of that slender vibrating body and never letting go.  

He skitters his fingers across half a scale – more to give them something to do that isn’t wildly inappropriate than to attempt anything like an actual melody. There’s a faint high-pitched hum hanging in the air even though Robbie’s not gone anywhere near the top notes. He stares at the keys and sees that the top A is stuck down again.

“Sympathetic resonance,” James murmurs from surprisingly close. Robbie looks up, their eyes meet, and James is watching him with _that look_ that Robbie still can’t decipher.

“There’s a harmonic likeness,” James explains. “Passive strings respond to external vibrations at a similar frequency.”

Robbie wants to say _I know_ , wants to say _I’ve played a piano a time or two before, Sergeant_ , but James has leaned in a bit, his mouth is barely six inches from Robbie’s, and suddenly Robbie’s tongue has gone dry. It’s just a moment – two – and then James has slipped the A key back into place and is stepping back, not looking anything like as flustered as Robbie feels by the whole exchange.

And it’s nothing – really, it’s nothing – it’s only that for just a moment, Robbie had wondered if the strings weren’t the only things resonating in sympathy.

* * *

He ought to say something, he thinks for about the hundredth time. It’s getting a bit ridiculous now. This isn’t just James rifling through old music, or giving Robbie a casual tip here and there. The lad is taking his role as Robbie’s teacher very seriously, and the petty deception is starting to eat at Robbie’s conscience.

James has turned up today with a brand new Grade Two book, and he’s picked out an upbeat little Theme and Variations for them to look over. Even if he was a Grade Two student, he wouldn’t pick anything this saccharine to learn, but the look of anticipation on James’ face keeps him from saying anything. He takes a stab at the piece and it’s easier than ever, although at least there’s a tricky little counter-melody in the left hand that he doesn’t have to feign difficulty with.

“Try a 1 – 4 – 5 fingering,” James suggests, as Robbie’s left hand refuses once again to cooperate.

Robbie mutters a few choice invectives and does as he’s told. It does help a bit, although the fifth finger on his left hand is weak and never seems to hit the key right in time.

“You need to be patient,” James murmurs from right behind him. “You have to build up your strength.”

He leans over Robbie’s shoulder to look at the music, and Robbie is suddenly acutely aware of all that solid expanse of chest just inches behind him. The lad puts out heat like a furnace. It must be catching; there’s no other explanation for why Robbie suddenly feels hot from head to toe.

“Although the problem could be that you’re playing at E,” James points out, “not an E flat.”

Robbie shakes his head to clear it. Yeah, of course. Bloody stupid mistake, that. Although it’d be a bit easier to concentrate if James wasn’t looming over him like some great, big, warm-blooded albino bat.

“Try again,” James suggests.

He does. He hits the E flat and it’s almost in time, but it still sounds like something’s missing. He doesn’t think the piece sounds any more in tune.

* * *

“Same time tonight, Robbie?” James says, a bit too loud as they leave the nick.

Innocent is just walking in, and she stops, arches her eyebrows at them both, and then zooms in on Robbie with that accusing look that says he’d better have a good explanation for this, and fast.

“Sergeant Hathaway’s giving me piano lessons, Ma’am,” he says with dignity.

Her glare subsides, but she glances between the two of them with something new and speculative. “Is he, indeed?” she murmurs cryptically.

“Yes, Ma’am,” James jumps in smartly. “Inspector Lewis has taken a strong dislike to Debussy.”

Facetious sod. Robbie reaches for a warning look, but can’t quite hide his grin.

“Indeed,” she murmurs, as if she doesn’t know quite what to make of that. “Pity. I’ve always loved his preludes. Well, I hope you’ll both give us the benefit of your musical talents at the Christmas party.”

She strides away before he and James can do anything more than exchange looks of abject horror.

She’s joking. He’s almost certain.

On the drive home, Robbie finds himself wondering what Innocent had meant by that accusing look she’d levelled his way. What had she thought was going on? James had said something, hadn’t he, something like ‘see you tonight’ or ‘another lesson tonight’ – or, no, it had been ‘same time tonight’, hadn’t it. And Innocent had thought – hang on, she hadn’t thought –

There’s no one in the car to see him, but Robbie feels himself blushing red from throat to hairline as he realises just what Jean Innocent had assumed.

* * *

There’s a new awareness of James that thrums through him now. He’d damn Jean Innocent to the seventh circle of hell for it, if he didn’t know it had been lurking there long before her mistake brought it to his attention.

It’s just – well, now he knows it’s not just the heating that's making him flush, or fatigue that makes his fingers tremble.  It’s James. It’s James’ solid physical presence that keeps distracting him as he tries to concentrate on Handel. And he’s probably thinking too much about James, and too little about the music, because he races through the Gavotte in record time, with record accuracy, and with absolutely no sensitivity whatsoever.

He doesn’t look up from the music when he’s finished, certain he can picture the disapproving moue of James’ lips. James has very strict ideas about how Baroque should and shouldn’t be played. Robbie’s heavy-handed attempts to emphasise the contrasts of loud and soft, fast and slow, melody and counter-melody, are apparently very much how it _shouldn’t_.  

So when the lad does speak, it’s a bit surprising to hear him say, “You know, I’m not sure how much more I can teach you.”

Robbie’s heart thumps so loud he can hear the blood in his ears.

“I mean, you’re picking it up so quickly,” James continues in a thin voice. “Honestly, it’s incredible how fast you’ve improved.”

It’s as good an opening as he’s ever going to get, Robbie thinks. This is the time to explain everything. About how he’s not quite the beginner James has assumed, about playing the clubs all over Newcastle back in his day, about his youthful pilgrimage to Ronnie Scott’s and the days spent trying to imitate Art Tatum.  About jazz.

“You don’t really need me,” James continues, still in that small, thin voice that doesn’t sound anything like his know-it-all sergeant.

And once again, Robbie is too weak to give the explanations he knows he should.

“I need you, lad,” he says quietly. Because that’s not a lie. And if James takes it other than it’s meant, well, the brightness of his smile sings ten times louder than Robbie’s conscience.

* * *

Only the little lie nags at Robbie day and night. It’s nothing, he tries to tell himself. Nothing more than a misunderstanding. And what does James care what Robbie plays to himself late at night, anyway?

But he’s not used to keeping any part of his life back from James. Somewhere along the way they’ve gotten in the habit of sharing more than just a curry.  These days, James Hathaway knows him better than any man alive. It doesn’t feel right, somehow, that he doesn’t know how Robbie and his piano spend their evenings.

It’s late now – they've had a late night at the office, a later pint at the pub, and the flat felt even more cold and empty than usual when he got home. He hasn’t bothered to turn the lights on, and he’s sitting at the keys in the dark, picking out one careless melody after another. He slides from an A to an A7 to a D9, stretching his fifth finger as far as it’ll go to round out the sound with a lush bass note. There’s nothing but his own playing, but he could swear Dietrich’s husky alto resounds through the flat.  

 _What am I to do?_ she croons.

He doesn’t know. Even the piano, with all her age and mellow experience, doesn’t have any suggestions.

* * *

“I hear you’ve moved house, Robbie,” Laura says, sounding downright chipper as she scrapes mud off the ankle of week-old corpse.

“That’s right. A few months ago now.”

“When’s the housewarming? Or aren’t I invited?”

“Come off it, Laura. Course you are!”

He realises too late that that's exactly what she’s angling for.

“Glad to hear it,” she says, with a sly smile.  “How about next weekend, then? I’m free on Saturday.”

He wonders how he’s got himself into this, and how exactly he can talk his way out of it.

“Make sure you invite Jean,” she reminds him. “She’s always taking you places.”

Trying to pair him up, more like, or smooth relations between the force and Oxford’s intellectual class. But he can’t say that, and he’s still trying to find the words to explain that he’s not really the hosting type, and that the flat’s quite small, and that fully two thirds of the space is taken up by something that really can’t be shifted about to make room for guests, when she says, “8 o’clock? I’ll bring a bottle of red. You won’t mind if Franco tags along?”

He gives up. Every woman in his life – every woman who matters, anyway – has always ridden rough-shod over him. He’s too old to change his ways now.

“It’ll be good to see him,” he agrees, with a notable lack of enthusiasm.

She’s absolutely beaming in smug self-satisfaction when he leaves. He thinks – and not for the first time – that there’s something a bit sinister about a woman who smiles while holding a scalpel.

* * *

“Interesting decorating scheme,” Laura allows, taking in the bare walls and floorboards and the solid mass of piano in the middle.

He’d thought about doing something – putting out a vase of flowers, maybe, or a pot-plant – but the truth is there’s nowhere for it go except the kitchen island, and that’s the makeshift bar for the evening. The coffee table is tiny, and he can hardly put anything on top of the piano. He likes to open the lid when he’s practicing so he can feel the whole flat shivering with those resonant vibrations. Now that he’s got used to the thick, syrupy richness of the sound echoing off the walls, music sounds muddy and lifeless with the lid closed.  

“Feels like home,” he tells her, and realises afterwards that that’s the truth. Somewhere along the way, coming home to confront the Leviathan of the Living Room stopped being a constant irritation and just became a part of his day.

“What a fabulous instrument, Robbie!” Innocent admires as he passes her a glass of wine. “You know, I honestly didn’t think you were serious when you said you were learning.”

He flushes in spite of himself at the reminder of that awkward miscommunication.

“And how’s Sergeant Hathaway as a teacher?” she asks now, and he flushes hotter still. She can hardly know that somewhere along the way Robbie has developed a strange fascination with James’ instructive persona.

“Most edifying, Ma’am,” he manages. “He displays excellent didactic abilities and, uh, strong management potential.”

She gives him a cool once-over. “Lord, you’re even starting to sound alike.”

He doesn’t know what to make of that one, and it’s rather a relief when the doorbell rings and he’s able to excuse himself to play host. He gets there only to find James has already answered it, done the welcome and is taking their coats.

“Thanks, lad,” he murmurs, and reaches out to squeeze his elbow just once, gently, before slipping into the kitchen to fix some more drinks. He wonders afterwards what prompted the gesture. It was an intimate thing to do, wasn’t it – squeezing the man’s elbow – as if they were hosting this event together. Like a couple, or something. Which _of course_ they’re not.

It’s the stress of hosting, he supposes. It’s not easy at the best of times, and it can be downright miserable when you find yourself hosting a party you never planned to throw. It’s never a one man operation, and you’re always grateful to someone who’ll help you pick up the slack. James is a good lad, he thinks again. A bloody good mate.

At least he hasn’t had to invite many people to make it feel like a party. The flat feels pleasantly crowded before everyone has even arrived. James helped him shift the couch into the spare bedroom to make a bit of space around the piano for people to stand, but even without the couch he can’t fit more than twelve people in the flat without someone ending up back on the front stoop. By the time he’d invited James, Laura and Franco, Jean and Mr sends-his-apologies-again Innocent, and a few of his and Val’s old friends, well, he really didn’t have room for anymore when he realised he ought to extend a courtesy invite to the flat upstairs. He’d never dreamed they’d accept, so of course they had.

His neighbours seem friendly types, decidedly closer to James’s age than to his. She’s a bubbly young woman with platinum blonde hair, and her husband is another of Oxford’s sober, bespectacled academics. They’ve left their little girl upstairs unsupervised so they’ve only popped down for one drink – ‘just a small one, no, a bit more, thanks ever so’ – but apparently they’ve been just _dying_ to get to know the gifted musician downstairs.

The remark resounds in one of those awkward silences that sometimes happen when everyone takes a drink at exactly the same time. All conversation stops.

“Is that you, Robbie?” Laura says, with a slow, interested smile. “I didn’t know you played.”

Oh God. This is exactly the conversation he doesn’t want to be having. But, “He’s getting really good,” James tells them all, with a proud grin that tugs at Robbie’s heartstrings in the best and worst of ways at once. He’s never felt more guilty about his little deception. “Well past Grade Two now.”

“Past Grade Two? Oh I’ll say!” his neighbour shrieks with an ecstatic giggle. And all Robbie can do is watch as disaster unfolds before his very eyes. “He’s bloody Art Tatum, isn’t he? I said to Gerald when he moved in – I said, watch it, we’re living above Duke Ellington. There’ll be swingers moving in next, that’s what I said, didn’t I, Gerald?”

Gerald opens his mouth, but she barrels on over him. “Play us something, won’t you? Do ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’, we love that one so much. I don’t know how your fingers move so fast!”

There’s general enthusiasm for this idea – cat-calls from Laura, a broad encouraging smile from Jean, and his old mates are saying, “Didn’t know you were a jazz man!” but Robbie isn’t listening to any of them. His eyes are fixed on James. James, who has frozen in place, and has gone quite white, and is staring at Robbie in bright-eyed betrayal. His lips have twisted into something confused and lost and very lonely.

He looks smaller and younger than ever, and Robbie wishes there was any way he could explain what he doesn’t understand himself. But he can’t – not here, not now, not in front of their friends and colleagues – and instead he finds himself being bullied down onto the piano stool. He tries to protest – no, it’s not the time, he’s not in the mood, it’s a party, not a recital – but they’re having none of it. He looks at James, and puts his fingers on the keys, and tries to find a way to say everything he needs the man to know.

His fingers flex out over the keys and begin the opening bars to ‘Misty’ almost without conscious thought. The room falls silent, but he barely notices the appreciative audience, so intent is he on making sure the music resounds with all the confusion of the last few months, and all the apologies and explanations he knows he should have given weeks ago. There’s no defence for it, of course, and _I get misty the moment you’re near_ is hardly going to stand up in court. But perhaps James will understand what he’s trying to say.

When he tinkles up to a top B flat at the end, the crowd bursts into spontaneous applause.

“Robbie, I had no idea!” Laura gushes.

“Val never said a word!”

“You’re not half-bad, mate!”

He looks up, but that familiar blond head isn’t looming over the rest. James has gone.

* * *

Robbie doesn’t know how he gets through the rest of the evening. Laura gives him an odd look from time to time, so he’s obviously not _quite_ managing, but no one else seems to notice anything amiss. Still, it’s a blessed relief when people start to make their farewells. The couple from upstairs are the last to go – she’s become increasingly loud and giggly as the evening progresses, her husband ever more dry and pedantic, and Robbie just hopes their little girl is old enough to put herself to bed because it’s well past eleven when he shuts the door behind them.

Then finally there’s blessed silence. He’s alone in the flat – well, alone with the piano. He looks at the instrument in all her dented grandeur. The lid is still standing open, the hammers, dampers and strings all exposed to the elements. For the first time he thinks how vulnerable she is, for all her monolithic solidity. A spilled drink, a dropped book, or the slit of a razor and her strings would snap. It wouldn’t matter then how dexterously you struck the keys, no sound would come out.

He closes her up with a gentle thud and lowers the front lid over the keys. He’s not in the mood to play any more tonight. He looks around at the clutter of empty wine glasses and bottles and decides the clean-up can wait til morning. He can’t remember the last time he felt this tired. He’s weary down to the marrow of his bones.

He switches off the living room light, opens the bedroom door, and freezes. There’s a long lank form stretched out on top of the covers.

“I thought you’d left,” he says stupidly.

James doesn’t turn his head in surprise, or recognition, or anything. He just lies there, staring off into the dark.

“I did,” he says quietly. “Laura caught me as I was slipping out the door. Told her I was going to get more ice. So then I thought I probably should. I brought back a few bags an hour ago.”

And slipped away to lie in here, in the dark, by himself. Robbie doesn’t know whether he should be worried by that, or pleased that at least James has stayed.

“Thanks, lad.”  

James doesn’t acknowledge it.

Robbie stares at that limp form stretched out thin as a wet rag, and he thinks for the first time how small James is. How vulnerable. He may be long gangly limbs and broad shoulders, but he’s also fine bones and long pale fingers. He’s fragile. Not unlike the piano, really – he’s all solid confidence on the outside, and delicate moving parts beneath.

He steps forward cautiously and sinks down on the end of the bed, so close James’ feet are practically in his lap. The lad doesn’t move, although he twitches as if he's fighting the instinct to curl his legs away.

“I should have told you,” he says quietly.

As if that’s not fucking obvious. But he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Why didn’t you?”

Robbie hesitates. “I dunno,” he admits, and sees James’ face shutter just a little bit more firmly closed.

And oh Christ, this is what they mean by _between a rock and a hard place_ and _when your back’s against the wall_ and all those pointless idioms that boil down to feeling like your options have been stripped away without you noticing. Because he realises now that there’s no good way to resolve this. If he lets James leave thinking this was all just some joke to Robbie – a bit of a laugh, nothing serious – then that’ll be it for their friendship. No doubt about it. They’ll probably still be able to work together, but on Monday James will turn up at the nick all polite and professional in that way he is with Peterson, or sometimes with Innocent. He’ll be respectful and obedient and _nothing at all_ like the irritating facetious sod Robbie has come to depend on. He’ll be the perfect sergeant, no doubt, and Robbie won’t be able to bear it.

But if he admits the truth, he may not even get to keep that.

So he hesitates, and hunches his shoulders beneath that watchful gaze. James is sporting that blank expression he’s got mastered – blank and getting blanker by the second – and that tells Robbie better than anything that the lad’s torn raw inside.

And suddenly he knows he can’t lie to him. Not again. Better to lose him completely with honesty, than keep a James-who’s-not-James with a lie.

“I liked your lessons,” he admits quietly. “You’re a good teacher.”

He stares at James until the lad is forced to meet his eyes, and then he wills him to understand everything he’s too cowardly to say aloud. _I liked sharing this with you. I liked having you look at me and listen to me and be with me for something that wasn’t work._

“You were so enthusiastic,” Robbie tries to explain, then stops when he sees James wince and twist his fingers in the covers. Oh sod it all to hell, he’s humiliated the lad, and really what he was trying to say was, “You seemed happy. I liked feeling like there was something I was doing that made you happy.”

James’s eyes widen, his whole expression transforming from one of abject misery into one of utter disbelief, and Robbie feels his shoulders sag in something that feels very much like defeat. He’s come this far, hasn’t he? Might as well get it all out.

“I like making you happy.”

The words seem to hang in the air for a moment, and then James’ whole body wracks with a heavy shudder.  

“Oh.”

That one tiny sound encapsulates so much surprise and delight that it damn near breaks Robbie’s heart.

“No one’s ever said that to me before.”

That’s no surprise, but Robbie is startled by the strength of his sudden desire to hunt down and hurt every single person who was fortunate enough to have James Hathaway in their life and didn’t know how bloody lucky they were.

“And you can really play?” James asks in a small voice. “You’re actually really pretty good?”

“Not at the classical stuff,” Robbie admits with a rueful smile. “But, uh, still a bit beyond Grade Two, lad.” He takes a deep breath and decides to make a clean breast of it. “I was a jazz player – used to play by the hour at the dance halls to make a bit of extra cash. That’s how I met Val. I used to play down at her Dad’s pub. I was even in a band myself, way back before you were born.”

“Jazz,” James repeats, sounding stunned, and then he’s laughing. He’s laughing and laughing and the sound doesn’t seem to hold any humour. Robbie looks up, alarmed, and the black expression on James’ face makes him uneasy. He places one tentative hand on the lad’s shin and that terrible not-laughter stops as suddenly as it began.

“Sorry,” James says. “Sorry. Can’t help it. You see, I can’t play.”

Robbie stares at him.

“I can pick out a few notes for band practice, but I can’t really play anything,” James continues, still with that big smile, that too-calm expression, and those eyes that suck him in like black holes. “I only did about two years when I was a kid. Then I went away to public school and grew my hair long and started smoking and refused to have another lesson. I taught myself guitar instead.”

This doesn’t make any sense. James has been teaching him for months, James is _brilliant_ at the piano, and Robbie’s heard him –

Oh. Hang on. Robbie hasn’t actually ever heard him play.

“Why did you offer to…?” he begins, and trails off. Because suddenly everything is coming together. That nervous look in James’s eye when he’d first offered to teach him. The way he always avoided touching the keys himself. The way he’d reach out to grasp Robbie’s wrist or shape his fingers or sit pressed close to him on the piano stool. Even that too-knowing look on Jean Innocent’s face.

Piano lessons, he thinks, and he could almost laugh himself. That’s not what they’ve been doing at all, is it. And Christ, Robbie’s the only one who’s been too thick to see things the way they really are.

“You were upset,” James says quietly. “It seemed like it was something to do with the piano. I wanted to help.”

Of course he had. That’s what James always wants. He gives and he gives and he doesn’t ask for anything for himself.

He never will, Robbie realises now. James is never going to say a word.

So Robbie reaches out, stretching up across the length of that long, warm leg, until he can curl his fingers around James’ palm. It’s strange and it’s awkward and it’s impulsive, but it’s the _right_ impulse, Robbie is sure of it, and he’s doubly sure when all the tension in James’ body seems to bleed out of him in one long exhalation.

“I wanted you to help,” Robbie confesses. “You did help.”

James breaks into a smile as bright and wide as the sun. And then he’s gripping Robbie’s fingers tightly, tugging at him, pulling him close so fast Robbie damn near tips over. There’s an awkward scuffle before they’re sitting side by side on the bed, and then it should be strange – sitting nose to nose with your sergeant and staring into his eyes like some hero from a bleeding romance novel and wondering what the devil you’re meant to do now – but it’s not awkward at all. Somehow it’s the simplest thing in the world to close that final gap and press their lips together.

It’s the lightest butterfly of a kiss before they pull back, but in that moment something deep inside Robbie locks into place. Someone’s hit the sustain pedal, he thinks, and the chord keeps hanging in the air long after the keys have been played.

This’ll hold.

He leans in again, and James is pressing forwards, and they’ve never been more in sympathy.

“So you’re really a guitar whiz, are you, lad?” Robbie asks minutes – or is it hours? – later, when they’re lying side by side in the dark, hand over hand, and Robbie is circling his thumb over those callused fingertips. They’re unmistakeably the hands of a guitar player. He wonders now how he could ever have imagined any different.

“I’m not bad,” James says cautiously, and this time Robbie knows the lad means he’s bloody brilliant.

Robbie grins into the dark.

“Guess we’ll have to learn some duets.”

**FINIS**

* * *

**CODA**

Gurdip twirls Julie across the floor, Peterson pulls off a lacklustre soft-shoe, and as his fingers dance across the keys Robbie reminds himself yet again never to underestimate Jean Innocent. Bad enough that he has to be at the Christmas party, but to be billed as part of the entertainment – well, he really thinks that’s beyond the call of duty.

Although with the way things have changed between him and his Sergeant, perhaps it’ll be no bad thing to have the Super owe him a favour or three. What they’re doing isn’t against the letter of the rules – he knows, he’s checked – but it’s certainly against the spirit, and he doesn’t doubt she’ll take a dim view of it when it all comes out. Which it will, Robbie knows with grim certainty. She’s already suspicious.

He shifts out of upbeat swing and into a Chet Baker lick. It’s one he’s been practicing on and off for awhile – James calls it syncopation in the locrian mode, Robbie calls James a smart-arse - but he still hasn't got it quite right. Across the room, James’s ears prick up at the familiar notes, and his face bursts into another of those eager puppy-dog smiles.

Oh yeah, Innocent’ll have them worked out soon enough if James goes on looking at his boss like that. But Robbie can’t bring himself to say anything to the lad. It’s rare enough that James allows himself an unguarded emotion, and Robbie can’t bear to make him self-conscious.

James breaks off his conversation with Mr I’ll-be-home-for-Christmas Innocent and comes towards the piano, leaning against the lid of the upright with _that look_. Robbie knows what that one means now well enough, and just the sight of it is enough to make him blush. Daft sod that he is, blushing at his age. James Hathaway’s made a right monkey out of him. It’s even more worrying how little he cares.

His fingers have slowed involuntarily, and now James smirks at him, says, “I don’t think Chet Baker would have approved of that one.”

Probably not.

“That so? Better take up any complaints with my teacher,” Robbie quips, and James's answering smile is half embarrassment and half delight.

It’s clear James is still a bit shaken by everything that’s changed, and Robbie can hardly blame him. It’s all still a bit unbelievable to Robbie when he thinks about it. He can’t believe James spent weeks reading about keyboard technique and piano design and the best exercises for older players. The lad isundeniably musical, of course. That must have helped. But still, all that time he’d taken going through old scores and trying to find pieces he thought Robbie could learn and he could reasonably pretend to teach – well, it boggles the mind.

“How about this one, then?” he says, and it’s easy as breathing to slow his fingers down to a gentle swing. He watches James’ face, waiting for the moment of recognition. James’s ears have perked up and he’s listening closely, trying to catch the song from those first leading notes. He’s not one for jazz, not really, but Robbie’s teaching him. They’re swapping Tchaikovsky for Oscar Peterson, and they’re both learning something new.

_Why do I do just as you say_

_Why must I just give you your way_

James doesn’t recognise it yet, but he must see the teasing in Robbie’s smile. He knows there’s a private joke in there somewhere and he cocks his head, listening with an intent expression. Over his shoulder, Robbie can just see Gurdip and Julie swaying closer together and Mr Innocent leading a smiling Jean out onto the floor.

But as the chorus swells, the light of recognition comes into James’s eyes and his lips soften into something too tender for public consumption. Robbie suspects his own face is similarly affected. He’s grateful now that Jean could only get her hands on a battered old upright. At least it hides his expression from the rest of the hall, allowing him the quiet pleasure of gazing into James’s eyes as he plays. It might be a bit foolish, or a bit soppy or sentimental, but it’s what the Robbie Lewis of thirty years ago might have done, and it turns out that man isn’t quite as lost as he’d thought. James gazes right back, and Robbie thinks they’ve never been more in tune. 

His right hand jumps the octave, the bass drops out, and then there's just the simplest of melodies left floating in the air.

_And it had to be you, it just had to be you,_

_It had to be you._


End file.
